Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Live it. Love it. Then, shake it off.

Two days has gone by, and i still can't shake it off. 12 hours of sleep over 4 days is insane. Eating suckling pig and roasted goose every night, at so late an hour it should be considered breakfast, is crazy. Delicious, but crazy. Every ticket to Hongkong must be appropriately labeled with "Power shopping could be dangerous to your health."

My extended weekend holiday turned out to be one hell of a brisk walking session. Having our HK relatives take us around the city to find those bargain shoppers' dream haul is a pain to my precious feet. My loving "ahn-nya" Una's "Malapit lang" turns out to be ten whole blocks of a reacquainted pedestrian's nightmare. But it sure beats taking those tours, locals sure know where the best buys are. Imagine, i bagged one giga pack of Sony's PSP 2.5v for HKD 1900.00 (12,540, our money). Hello, the 32 mb value pack here costs like 14k already. A steal right? Plus, i got a load of clothes off Giordano and Bossini's sale racks, enough to fill my previously three-fourths empty luggage plus two hand carries. I'm not really a big shopper. I don't really like buying for myself. Let's just say everybody i came home to emptied my loot returning my haul to its original one-fourth filled glory. PSP included.

Speaking of pasalubongs, their latest theme park have some decent shops too. The spread is enormous, not to mention pricey. I convinced myself not to convert, lest i want to leave the place with nothing, not even a keychain. I surprised myself when i picked up three bags full of goodies at the baggage check. (Again, i'm not a shopper, really. I graduated from retail therapy ages ago. I have severe cases of buyer's remorse every now and then, preventing me from indulging. Oh shopping gods, have mercy on me.) Hongkong Disneyland is all it's hyped up to be. It is EK with less people and with a more tourist-friendly weather. It's definitely a kids' place, and i think i'm starting to breach the "maturity" threshold, so appreciating than participating appealed more to me. Yeah, and cam-whoring too.

You can always speak a lot about the country's natives by just observing the streets. Apparently, the quiapo and recto snatcher species hadn't been imported yet, pedestrians have their cellphones practically glued to their ears, plus rates must be cheap too. Almost everybody fits under my "manipis" category, probably with all the walking they're used to. Real food is readily available on the streets, baked goods stores smell like heaven, cash registers right up front for easy buy-and-run. One could easily maneuver around the city's public transport, having an octopus card gets you on all mtr lines, buses, and trams. Maps, signs, road warnings (all with english translations) are visible and very comprehensible. Store clerks are very helpful and efficient to the hilt, almost on the tarantamode, so unlike here, where store attendees just follow you around like stalkers and treats you like you're going to pull a Winona any moment now. Everything's so clean (probably because of the SARS scare), fast paced, and im green with envy. Why can't we be more like that? Paki-explain nga.

Yesterday's encounter with the server at our local Jollibee made me say "Hello Lallie, welcome back to the Philippines". But then again, with super-stress inducing environment there, prompting the government to put glass encasing on all subway tracks to prevent the most preferred way to suicide, still there's no place like our laid-back home.